Hurricane Sandy brought our New York office to a standstill. Our building
located in the Flatiron district lost power when the storm hit. Most of our
employees lost power in their apartments as well. We are fortunate to have
offices in Boston, London, and San Francisco. With much of New York shut down,
our Boston office became the temporary command center for the company. We set
about trying to reach all NxJumpers from the NY office to make sure everyone
was ok. We were anxious because many people, including our CEO, were not
reachable by cell phone. An organic movement of individuals reaching out to
colleagues began and after numerous word-of-mouth reports everyone was
accounted for. One colleague had escaped the storm by driving to a
friend's house in Ohio. Another was last known finding shelter in the
middle of Staten Island. The storm was particularly difficult for parents. We
heard about our chief of staff, a mother of two (3 year old and 5 month old
boys), who walked down 47 flights of stairs with her husband and two children
to drive to her parents' home in Massachusetts. There were also many
NxJumpers' family members affected by Sandy - parents in Staten Island,
Westchester and Rockaway Beach who suffered severe flood damage to their
homes.

How we helped each other

Our colleagues in the Boston office stepped up quickly to make sure
business was not interrupted for our clients and users. Folks in every
department volunteered to fill any role needed. If they did not have the right
skills they were willing to learn. Our lead engineer became the interim head
of the customer service team. A senior developer and an associate from our
human capital team in Boston morphed into CS associates. The entire NOC team
went into overdrive to make sure disaster recovery procedures were underway.
Everyone asked "What can I do to help?" A colleague overseas on vacation had
heard about the storm and contacted us to ask how he could pitch in. To
support the email operations team in Boston, another engineer moved into her
in-law's house so that she would have access to power. That's
dedication! We also heard stories of colleagues helping neighbors in the
city. Our SVP of engineering and his wife cared for an elderly couple in their
building which had lost power, hot water and heat. People who had power
invited colleagues to camp out in their apartment for the week.

How we are helping others

The lights finally turned on in our office building and the homes of most
NxJumpers over the weekend. At our company staff meeting on Monday, our CEO
challenged us to contribute 10% of our next paycheck into a fund to help
people in our extended "Next Jump family"- the people in our lives at work and
our communities who were experiencing hardship. While NxJumpers in New York
didn't work last week (couldn't!), they still got paid. But hourly
workers like our delivery man Danny, Gloria our building's cleaning lady,
or Jose our maintenance man also couldn't work last week, but because
their salaries are paid hourly they lost an entire week's pay. Our
collective 10% would enable us to cover that loss of pay for them. In just
four days, 30% of our company's employees gave a portion of their
paychecks and contributed to this fund raising $15,000.

I hope we don't experience another Hurricane Sandy any time soon, but
I have to say it has been inspiring to see the different ways people chipped
in to help neighbors, colleagues and important, but often forgotten people, in
our daily lives.

Update: Next Jump Jump created a fund entitled "Forgotten Ones
Fund". Once the fund was created, NxJumpers quickly nominated hourly
workers throughout NY and NJ who lost wages during Hurricane Sandy.
The distribution of the envelopes began early this week, click here to
learn about the Forgotten One's stories.